Sunday, November 11, 2012

Lois Lane's "Fictional" Adventures

Why the scare quotes? Well, it turns out that a few of these stories never existed. Action Comics #20 is the January 1940 issue, and the (untitled) Superman story in that issue has Superman dealing with a headstrong actress; Lois doesn't even appear in there. The May 1944 issue of Superman is #28, and it doesn't include any story with Lois on Krypton; at that point Superman didn't even know the name of his home planet.

Lois did not commit any crimes, perfect or flawed in the November 1945 issue of Superman, although she did meet a modern Annie Oakley in May 1951 (Superman #70). She was featured in Mrs Superman (Superman #76) and wanted in Action #195, and had six lives in Action #198 and X-ray vision in Action #202. The stories listed in the Showcase tryouts and Lois's own magazine are real, so overall, there were three stories (the first three) that never existed, out of the fifteen.

And, oddly enough, that turns out to be pretty good as the next Lois Lane Annual had seven phony baloney stories:

Well, my guess is that Weisinger just didn't care if he got that list right; back then the assumption was that nobody would ever check this stuff. There are some pretty obvious problems with the above list: Superboy didn't have his own magazine until 1949, and Showcase #8 was a Flash issue, not a Lois Lane tryout.

LOL, Diane! Actually she is trying to get a starring role in a Broadway play, but the producer wants her to get her hands dirty first, so she has to work for two weeks as a pretzel bender in a factory. Complicating matters is that her supervisor had promised the job to his girlfriend and is itching to find a way to fire her.

But still, why would Weisinger bother? Surely it would have been just as easy to pull out a few back issues and proclaim them "famous Lois Lane stories" So even if he didn't think he'd be caught, why do it?-Fraser